


A Life for a Life

by ourcrimescene



Series: And You Caused It [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, Headcanon-verse, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-23 23:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourcrimescene/pseuds/ourcrimescene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sokolov begins to write an account of Empress Emily Kaldwin's rise to power, he finds a surprising number of people willing to speak of the Lord Protector, Corvo Attano.</p><p>He supposes he shouldn't be surprised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life for a Life

When Geoff Curnow hears of High Overseer Campbell’s plot to murder him if not for Corvo’s intervention, he isn’t surprised.

When he hears of Campbell’s ultimate fate, however, he is surprised.

From hearing about the Masked Felon’s brutality, he figured that everyone in the criminal’s path would be killed. When Corvo was revealed to be the criminal, and Geoff began to look into the details of the fates of the people that meant to harm Corvo, he was…astounded.

Fresh out of prison after six months of torture, Geoff would have expected Corvo to be at his most brutal, most enraged.

And yet…Campbell was very much alive until only recently.

Geoff confronts Corvo about the incident, and, unsurprisingly, Corvo is mostly silent, until…

“The worst fate for a man that wealthy is losing his wealth and power.”

As it happens, Campbell died in the Flooded District with the Heretic’s Brand after the plague took him.

Losing his wealth and power, indeed.

\--------------------

Violetta never liked the Pendletons.

They were rude and stuck up; however, they did pay well, and that was enough to service them.

When it came out that they had both been murdered by the Masked Felon, and their deaths weren’t just accidents, she wasn’t particularly surprised. Rich men like them, they surely had enough enemies to merit at least one assassination attempt.

It was a shame that Loulia died in the crossfire though, in the steam room. She had always handled Morgan Pendleton with a sort of grace that none of the other girls could hope to achieve.

She saw Corvo, once, after everything was over. He had trailed into the Golden Cat after Emily Kaldwin, the empress, a silent guardian with dead eyes.

They lost Madame Prudence that day—Emily had her removed to the Flooded District for her cruelty to the girl during her stay.

She touches Corvo on the sleeve, and his eyes—green, she notices—flick to her indifferently.

“Thank you for taking care of the Pendletons.” She says quietly before retreating out of the room.

She isn’t sure if Corvo’s mouth twitched into some semblance of a smile or not.

Assumedly, she’ll never know.

\--------------------

When Esma is found dead in her bedroom, Waverly is quick to investigate the cause while Lydia mourns the loss of their sister.

Upon checking the guest book at the door, and finding the name “Corvo Attano” written in it, it is only common sense as to who did the killing.

She even vaguely remembers seeing a replica of the Masked Felon’s mask at the party…though now she is fairly certain that it wasn’t just a replica.

And she has an inkling as to who Corvo was at the party.

Brisby, of course, is in a rage and utterly distraught over Esma’s death, and Waverly has him removed from the premises, staring at her fingernails in distaste, but not before she hears him shout something about how close he was to his prize.

Not long later, after further investigation, she hears of the offer Brisby made to Corvo, and she suddenly is rather glad that he chose a clean death for her sister, rather than a lifetime of slavery to the wretched man.

She arranges for an assassin in a red coat with black gloves to kill Brisby.

Not just dispose of him.

Murder him.

It is, she supposes, the beginning of her links and understandings with the assassins of Dunwall.

\--------------------

Samuel remembers the loudspeakers blaring Lord Regent Burrows’ crimes across the city. He wonders then if Corvo means to leave Hiram Burrows alive for a trial.

Corvo returns spattered in blood, and Samuel realizes it was rather naïve of him to believe such a thing.

He finds out later that the recording began just as Corvo reached the private quarters of Burrows. Corvo then killed Burrows. Brutally. There was a lot of blood, and it explains why Corvo came back drenched in blood.

Even later, he finds out that he took out his torturer, his jailer. Samuel supposes he shouldn’t have been surprised, but after Corvo’s immense discretion in the past…well he wasn’t particularly ready for that level of brutality.

If he focused on that, it made it a little easier to spike the drink.

He didn’t mean for the following events to occur—for Corvo to be picked up by the Whalers, for Wallace and Lydia to be killed, for the entire Hound Pits to be taken over by the City Watch and Tallboys, but there wasn’t much he could’ve done at that point except hope that Corvo made it back alive enough to…to do something.

He sees Corvo again, back at the Hound Pits, when everything is over and Emily sits the throne. Corvo still looks haunted, a little broken, but he looks far better than he did when he emerged from the sewers after breaking out of Coldridge.

They talk for a long time, getting progressively drunker. He thinks this is the most Corvo has spoken since the death of his Empress, and maybe this is the beginning of Corvo’s mending.

He would like to hope so.

\--------------------

Daud sometimes wonders why Corvo didn’t kill him.

After he retreated to Serkonos, to leave all of Gristol behind, he has a lot of time to think.

Corvo nearly decimated his group of Whalers in the process of getting to his office, but after they fought, Corvo merely walked away, leaving Daud bleeding and injured on the floor.

Daud returns to Dunwall one last time, nearly a year after Corvo spared him.

Jessamine Kaldwin’s tomb is in pristine condition, shining and surrounded by beautiful landscaping. Crouching down onto his knees, he lays his sword on the gravestone, shutting his eyes for a second before he gets to his feet.

He turns to see Corvo, standing behind him silently.

They are both weathered men, making choices that have affected countless lives, leaving them and others to face the consequences.

Daud slowly walks past the other man, solemnly awaiting the inevitable sword through his back.

It never comes.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” He asks in a moment of uncharacteristic vulnerability. He is prepared to transverse away, out to the ship Lizzy Stride has waiting for him, to take him to Serkonos.

“You were a weapon. I was a weapon.”

We aren’t that different, you and I.

\--------------------

Admiral Farley Havelock frequently wonders why Corvo didn’t kill him that day, in the lighthouse.

It isn’t like there’s much else to do in his cell in Coldridge.

When instead of thrusting a sword through his chest like Corvo did many others, he blinked behind him and choked him out.

Corvo was a mystery, and always will be.

Only once did he get any semblance of an answer, when he saw Corvo for the last time within the deep bowels of Coldridge, and the man muttered something along the lines of: “A life for a life.”

And on the day before his execution, when Havelock receives a key to his cell with a meal, he realizes where his and Corvo’s senses of honor differ:

Where Havelock seeks power, Corvo seeks equality.

A life for a life.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my headcanon!verse. A tiny reference to LadySmaragdina's idea of Waverly and Daud's relationship (go read her stuff, it's beautiful)


End file.
